Blake Hounshell is managing editor at Foreign Policy, having formerly been Web editor. Hounshell oversees ForeignPolicy.com and has commissioned and edited numerous cover stories for the print magazine, including National Magazine Award finalist "Why Do They Hate Us?" by Mona Eltahawy.
He also edits The Cable, FP's first foray into daily original reporting, and was editor of Colum Lynch's Turtle Bay, which in 2011 won a National Magazine award for best reporting in a digital format.

A graduate of Yale University, Blake speaks mangled Arabic and French, is an avid runner, and lives in Washington with his wife, musician Sandy Choi, and their toddler, David. Follow him on Twitter @blakehounshell.

November 16, 2012 - 8:07 pm

Benghazi conspiracy theorists were hoping that David Petraeus, now that he’s been unshackled by stepping down as director of the CIA, would finally drop a bombshell in congressional hearings today and expose the Obama administration’s massive coverup the Sept. 11 attack that killed four Americans, including Amb. Chris Stevens. Finally, he would reveal how the White House and Susan Rice concocted a false story connecting that assault to protests over an anti-Islam YouTube video when they knew all along that al Qaeda was behind the ambassador’s death. And he would tell us at last how his affair with Paula Broadwell was used to blackmail him into silence.

Er, not so much.

Turns out that the CIA had, in fact, drafted talking points for an interagency review that more or less reflected what Rice said on all those Sunday talk shows. The AP reports:

Lawmakers said he did not discuss that scandal except to express regret about the circumstances of his departure and say that Benghazi had nothing to do with his decision to resign.

Petraeus testified that the CIA draft written in response to the raid referred to militant groups Ansar al-Shariah and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb but those names were replaced with the word "extremist" in the final draft, according to a congressional staffer. The staffer said Petraeus testified that he allowed other agencies to alter the talking points as they saw fit without asking for final review, to get them out quickly. […]

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said Petraeus explained that the CIA’s draft points were sent to other intelligence agencies and to some federal agencies for review. Udall said Petraeus told them the final document was put in front of all the senior agency leaders, including Petraeus, and everyone signed off on it.

"The assessment that was publicly shared in unclassified talking points went through a process of editing," Udall said. "The extremist description was put in because in an unclassified document you want to be careful who you identify as being involved."

So that’s it, folks. I must admit that I find the mindless fixation on what Susan Rice said on Sept. 16 baffling. There are real questions about how the Obama administration took its eye off the ball in Libya, among them: Why did it entrust its consulate’s external security to an Islamist militia with uncertain loyalties? Why didn’t it beef up internal security when folks on the ground asked for it? Who made the decision to reject those request? Charlene Lamb? Patrick Kennedy? Or somebody higher up? Did the CIA and the State Department miscommunicate? Why did Petraeus change his story? Did the intelligence community miss brewing signs of danger? What were all those spooky types really doing at that annex?

More broadly: Does Congress want the United States to stay engaged in Libya? At what level? Does the State Department have all the resources it needs to keep its people safe? What level of risk do Americans want their diplomats to assume? And how comfortable are we with consulates in danger zones that seem to be mere fronts for the more covert stuff?

Unfortunately, you go to the hearing room with the Congress you have, not necessarily the Congress you want.

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Blake Hounshell is managing editor at Foreign Policy, having formerly been Web editor. Hounshell oversees ForeignPolicy.com and has commissioned and edited numerous cover stories for the print magazine, including National Magazine Award finalist "Why Do They Hate Us?" by Mona Eltahawy.
He also edits The Cable, FP's first foray into daily original reporting, and was editor of Colum Lynch's Turtle Bay, which in 2011 won a National Magazine award for best reporting in a digital format.

A graduate of Yale University, Blake speaks mangled Arabic and French, is an avid runner, and lives in Washington with his wife, musician Sandy Choi, and their toddler, David. Follow him on Twitter @blakehounshell.

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Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.

Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.

A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.

Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C.

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Amy B. Zegart<p>
Amy Zegart is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of Eyes on Spies: Congress and the United States Intelligence Community. You can follow her on Twitter @AmyZegart.
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| Amy Zegart |

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